Does Massage Reduce Depression?

The World Health Organization(WHO) predicts that by 2020 major depression will be second only to heart disease as the leading cause of disability worldwide. That is a disturbing prediction to say the least. The fact is that most people are affected by some type of depression at one point in their lives.

Types of Depression:

Seasonal affective disorder (this depressive disorder is the result of lack of sunlight and is often treated with light therapy)

Postpartum depression (this is when a new mother has a depressive episode after giving birth and usually occurs within a month after delivery)

Major depressive disorder (this is a disabling depressive disorder that interferes with your daily life, making it very difficult to get up in the morning and participate in daily activities), People who get this depressive disorder often have it more than once.

Depression due to a traumatic event (such as a death in the family, a divorce, etc.).

Depression due to hormonal changes in the body, particularly in women. Life-cycle transitions cause hormonal fluctuations in some women and may trigger mild to severe mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder, particularly during pregnancy, postpartum and perimenopause.

Some depression, whether mild or more severe, in men, women and children remains unexplained, but is nevertheless real.

How Does Massage Help?

So how does massage affect moods? While massage is not a depression cure, it can help decrease depressed feelings. One of the best-known benefits of massage therapy is its ability to enhance feelings of well-being, and studies show promise in the area of depression. When you're depressed, your brain produces less neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, endorphins and dopamine – the feel-good hormones. Although the root causes are not fully understood, a physiological marker of depression is a low level of the neurotransmitter, serotonin. Serotonin is responsible for the transmission of nerve messages and helps to sustain feelings of well-being. Massage releases both serotonin and endorphins. The serotonin acts as a calming mediator for the body while the endorphins act as a happy stimulator for the brain.

As well as increasing production of these feel-good hormones, massage also helps lower the stress hormone, cortisol. Also, therapeutic massage releases tension and promotes relaxation, which leads to an immediate and significant decrease in cortisol, sometimes by more than 40 percent.

Some symptoms of depression are: if you are feeling sad, and this feeling doesn’t go away within a reasonable amount of time, feeling tired all the time, having difficulty concentrating, experiencing feelings of hopelessness, have loss of interest in life and things you used to enjoy, sleeping too much or the inability to sleep at all, overeating or loss of appetite, and feelings of emptiness or irritability.

If you're feeling depressed consider getting a Swedish massage or some form of relaxation massage. The smooth fluid strokes of this type of massage really help calm the mind. For those who have not responded well to prescription antidepressants, there are alternative therapies that have been shown to provide positive results in treating mild to moderate degrees of depression. These therapies include acupuncture, animal-assisted therapy, aromatherapy, expressive therapy and touch or massage therapy.

I just wanted to know if it would be a good idea to get in massage therapy school before getting into Physical therapy and what would be a better option physical therapy aide or massage therapy just wondering?

Using a Stress Relieve Program

If you haven’t been feeling well lately or you know that you’ve been more stressed out than you think, you might want to look into the Stress Sweeper program. By simply attaching a device to your ear and hooking it up to your computer, you can begin to train your body to feel better. The program will show your body responses over time and teaches you to make the necessary changes. By watching and being aware of your stress, you can begin to take steps to slow down and to relax. Sometimes just realizing you are more stressed than is healthy – as the Stress Monitor will show you – is enough to help you learn to breathe in the midst of crazy circumstances.

Monitor Your Life Health with Health Snapshot

Though you may think constant vigilance is unnecessary, this isn’t the case. When you use a program like Health Snapshot on a daily basis, you can instantly see where your health is at and whether you need to take steps towards change. This health monitor is simple and gives you a seven category report which can help you decide what changes need to be made. All you have to do is to hook up the ear clip to your ear lobe and then the clip into your computer. In five minutes, you will see if you are doing all you can for the aging progress or if you need to do more. Your health assessment is complete.

HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- Planning for care at the
end of life can make things easier for people as they die, while reducing
stress and depression among loved ones, new research suggests.

Reuters - Stronger and more lasting memories are likely to be formed when a person is relaxed and the memory-related neurons in the brain fire in sync with certain brain waves, scientists said on Wednesday.

HealthDay - THURSDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) -- With nearly 10 percent of
the nation's workforce unemployed, the emotional impact of a job loss is
well-known to millions of Americans. But the psychological fallout can be
equally tough for their children.

Reuters - "Watchful waiting" for disease progression won't make men with slow-growing prostate cancer more anxious or distressed, especially if they're in relatively good health otherwise and not too anxious to begin with, new research shows.

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